Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Sparks_Havelock wrote:

PresidentOfAsia wrote:Then I guess the catachans and tanith are uninteresting...

The catachan book was a lot more enjoyable then the space wolves omnibus though

It's not so much that as compared to the Space Marines, Grey Knights, Eldar etc etc every other race is individually more powerful than the individual Guardsman no matter how 'elite' that Guardsman is compared to his peers. That is why the Guard are more interesting, because they have the full range of human emotions that the other races lack (in general, ignoring elements like Krieg), they're equipped with the weaker weapons in the universe (although the lasgun is still damned powerful by human standards) and they often have to face off against forces which are among their worst nightmares.

that's precisely what makes them uninteresting to me.

when i had my DKoK and SL armies, their fluff was supposed to be that they were this very elite group. Then I realized that the lowliest ultramarine is more than 50x as elite, and that alone was enough for me to stop playing guard.

I now have my World Eaters and I know they're elite.

Twiqbal wrote:when i had my DKoK and SL armies, their fluff was supposed to be that they were this very elite group. Then I realized that the lowliest ultramarine is more than 50x as elite, and that alone was enough for me to stop playing guard.

Not sure what "SL" is, but what exactly about "World War 1 Trench Warfare Germans" was screaming elite to you?

Either way, I think you've found yourself a good solution. The Imperium (and its "Chaos version") offers a wide range of armies (and subtypes of armies) to cater for every possible taste, from the lowliest zerg rush IG regiment to the most fancy and "special" Marine Chapter capable of conquering entire sectors with a single company. All of us have a different perception of how terms such as "grimdark", "incompetent", "exaggerated", "epic" or "marysue" are defined, and all of us have different preferences. GW manages to cater to all of them, so we should all be happy with what we got, no?

Gas Masks

Well Kriegsmen have better stats than regular IG, make that of what you will.

They're no better than SM, that's for sure.

Lynata wrote:

spaceXjam wrote:yet a imperial guard regiment is made up of somthing between 4000-8000 soilders...

The number of troops in a regiment is highly variable and depends on the condition of the soldiers in it. For example, there are Valhallan regiments with over a hundred thousand troops in them. The Munitorum merely demands that each regiment's fighting strength is somewhat equal to another, so obviously Cadian regiments with their superior training and equipment would be somewhat smaller.

At least that's what it says in the IG Codex.

cadians have 4000-8000 men in a regiment.

Lynata wrote:

Twiqbal wrote:when i had my DKoK and SL armies, their fluff was supposed to be that they were this very elite group. Then I realized that the lowliest ultramarine is more than 50x as elite, and that alone was enough for me to stop playing guard.

Not sure what "SL" is, but what exactly about "World War 1 Trench Warfare Germans" was screaming elite to you?

Either way, I think you've found yourself a good solution. The Imperium (and its "Chaos version") offers a wide range of armies (and subtypes of armies) to cater for every possible taste, from the lowliest zerg rush IG regiment to the most fancy and "special" Marine Chapter capable of conquering entire sectors with a single company. All of us have a different perception of how terms such as "grimdark", "incompetent", "exaggerated", "epic" or "marysue" are defined, and all of us have different preferences. GW manages to cater to all of them, so we should all be happy with what we got, no?

Really I consider the DKoK to be an "elite" Guard regiment, not Stormtrooper level but up there with the Cadians and Catachans. They're certainly one of the most highly decorated Regiments. Where they stand out has more to do with their tenacity/refusal to retreat in both attack and defense and skill at siege/trench warfare than simply having company's of well-rounded infantry.

The average Regiments aren't represented in studio fluff really. GW itself says the regiments we're exposed to are the most famed and renown. Meanwhile the bottom-of-the-barrel Regiments can be armed with muskets and spears.

Harriticus wrote:Really I consider the DKoK to be an "elite" Guard regiment, not Stormtrooper level but up there with the Cadians and Catachans. They're certainly one of the most highly decorated Regiments. Where they stand out has more to do with their tenacity/refusal to retreat in both attack and defense and skill at siege/trench warfare than simply having company's of well-rounded infantry.

Hmmh, I suppose it hinges on what constitutes "elite". Without doubt the Death Korps are one of the most stubborn regiments out there, right up with the Mordians, but the idea of trench warfare in itself just conjures images of thousands of men charging into waiting guns, then rinse and repeat until one side runs dry of ammunition or reinforcements, and that didn't really seem "elite" to me. Might be just my perception of it, tho. I am fairly reluctant to attribute the "elite" tag to any IG force other than the Storm Troopers. It depends on what one is comparing them to, however ... other troops in the galaxy? Other Imperial forces? Or just other Guard regiments? If the latter, then yeah, I guess you could call them somewhat elite, but I don't think this was what Twiqbal was getting at, considering he switched to Marines soon after.

Harriticus wrote:The average Regiments aren't represented in studio fluff really. GW itself says the regiments we're exposed to are the most famed and renown. Meanwhile the bottom-of-the-barrel Regiments can be armed with muskets and spears.

Well, they'd still have lasguns, at least according to the codices. Type of body armour, additional equipment, training, even transportation (or lack thereof) are the things that might differ a lot, though, and which would make a soldier less effective than another. We just have to look at the real world to see what an impact this can have on a battle.
That said, it also depends a lot on the "combinations" of who is fighting what. Most IG regiments seem fairly specialized, and even the Attilan Rough Riders have a place where they'd excel.

spaceXjam wrote:

Lynata wrote:

spaceXjam wrote:yet a imperial guard regiment is made up of somthing between 4000-8000 soilders...

The number of troops in a regiment is highly variable and depends on the condition of the soldiers in it. For example, there are Valhallan regiments with over a hundred thousand troops in them. The Munitorum merely demands that each regiment's fighting strength is somewhat equal to another, so obviously Cadian regiments with their superior training and equipment would be somewhat smaller.
At least that's what it says in the IG Codex.

cadians have 4000-8000 men in a regiment.

That would fit to what I wrote, then, wouldn't it?

@Lynata I agree with you on the "Eliteness" of DKoK. This maybe heretical, but I dislike them. Army of WW1 clones who only fight trench warfare style, not my preferred style of Guardsmen.

The current Guard Codex, plus Abnetts and Mitchel's books paint the picture of a competent military force, capable of fighting and winning war against most enemies. Which is nice. The thing is their only humans in a galaxy of super humans, evil super humans, Lighting Fast elves, orks and soulless robots. Even if they win, its going to cost them lives. Which is what I like about them. If I read a story, I rather it have a hard fought battle, then a story about how space knights drop in, kill stuff, win, go back to the monastery, polish their armor, repeat. Marines bore me.

I do believe GW makes guard seem to be a bunch of cowardly die in mass idiots because they need to write stories about how their space knights get to be the best-est winners ever. So they have to make the IG lose. Which is the same reason PDF's are written to be incompetent screw ups who die to the man, its to make the IG look good.

spaceXjam wrote:

Lynata wrote:

spaceXjam wrote:yet a imperial guard regiment is made up of somthing between 4000-8000 soilders...

The number of troops in a regiment is highly variable and depends on the condition of the soldiers in it. For example, there are Valhallan regiments with over a hundred thousand troops in them. The Munitorum merely demands that each regiment's fighting strength is somewhat equal to another, so obviously Cadian regiments with their superior training and equipment would be somewhat smaller.

At least that's what it says in the IG Codex.

cadians have 4000-8000 men in a regiment.

According to the 5th ed. codex regiments can be anywhere from about 1,500-120,000 personnel, not including camp followers. Honestly it has little to do with training or equipment, just the customs of the homeworld. If the regiments are too big and elite to actually be of use (for example, when will you ever need 120,000 grenadiers in a single engagement), it would probably just be split into independent companies, or perhaps the regiment size would be capped. Regardless size is more dependent on culture and resources than anything else, if you are fielding a heavy armoured regiment (stuff like the macharius, smaller than a baneblade but bigger than a russ) you might have maybe 3 tanks per squadron, 4 squadrons per company, and 4 companies per regiment leaving you with just 48 tanks and probably around 200-400 tank crew not including techpriests and other support officers, while if you are from a hive world that is fielding infantry regiments they could easily number over a hundred thousand simply because you have the resources and it simplifies keeping track of your numerous forces (easier to keep track of 10 huge regiments than 100 small regiments).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:
Which is the same reason PDF's are written to be incompetent screw ups who die to the man, its to make the IG look good.

The PDF was going to write an angry response but they were killed to a man.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:The current Guard Codex, plus Abnetts and Mitchel's books paint the picture of a competent military force, capable of fighting and winning war against most enemies.

From my experience Abnett's and Mitchell's books in particular deviate heavily from GW's own material. Not that I'm necessarily trying to paint the Guard as "incompetent". In my opinion, most IG regiments hit just the right spot between "incompetent" and "elite". Just the right amount of casual disregard for the value of a soldier's life to make it grimdark, and just the right amount of determination and persistence to still be victorious most of the time. In Codex material, the Imperial Guard has always been described as a slow and unwieldy steamhammer that takes months to mobilize - but once it's deployed, few enemies are able to withstand the immense pressure resulting out of the Guard committing its men to a war of attrition. The kind of campaign not even the Space Marines would be able to win. And anything that makes the Marines "less perfect" or less suitable to some job than another Imperial force is a big plus, imho, as I like the idea of "narrative balance" (lest you just end up with omnipotent mary-sues, and a few individual Chapters are dangerously close to this level due to the hype surrounding their "coolness").

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:I do believe GW makes guard seem to be a bunch of cowardly die in mass idiots because they need to write stories about how their space knights get to be the best-est winners ever. So they have to make the IG lose.

Yeah, that's a noticeable trend. Not as bad as the SoB, but on the other hand it may seem worse because more sources mention the IG at all.

On the other hand, I believe that (just like with the more pessimistic SoB players) a lot of IG players may seem to forget those epic battles where the Guard did carry victory or managed to pull off some epic feat. Colonel Straken strangling a CSM Lord comes to mind, to name just one example. And that's directly from Codex material, not just some BL shenanigans.

Lynata wrote:

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:The current Guard Codex, plus Abnetts and Mitchel's books paint the picture of a competent military force, capable of fighting and winning war against most enemies.

From my experience Abnett's and Mitchell's books in particular deviate heavily from GW's own material. Not that I'm necessarily trying to paint the Guard as "incompetent". In my opinion, most IG regiments hit just the right spot between "incompetent" and "elite". Just the right amount of casual disregard for the value of a soldier's life to make it grimdark, and just the right amount of determination and persistence to still be victorious most of the time. In Codex material, the Imperial Guard has always been described as a slow and unwieldy steamhammer that takes months to mobilize - but once it's deployed, few enemies are able to withstand the immense pressure resulting out of the Guard committing its men to a war of attrition. The kind of campaign not even the Space Marines would be able to win. And anything that makes the Marines "less perfect" or less suitable to some job than another Imperial force is a big plus, imho, as I like the idea of "narrative balance" (lest you just end up with omnipotent mary-sues, and a few individual Chapters are dangerously close to this level due to the hype surrounding their "coolness").

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:I do believe GW makes guard seem to be a bunch of cowardly die in mass idiots because they need to write stories about how their space knights get to be the best-est winners ever. So they have to make the IG lose.

Yeah, that's a noticeable trend. Not as bad as the SoB, but on the other hand it may seem worse because more sources mention the IG at all.

On the other hand, I believe that (just like with the more pessimistic SoB players) a lot of IG players may seem to forget those epic battles where the Guard did carry victory or managed to pull off some epic feat. Colonel Straken strangling a CSM Lord comes to mind, to name just one example. And that's directly from Codex material, not just some BL shenanigans.

I'm not a Sisters fan but the way GW treats them is horrible. Need something killed, maimed, or used as lubricant for your armor, turn to the Sisters.

I dont forget the fluff where the guard did manage a victory or an aepic feat, but I'm always ready to bust Spess mahreens down a few pegs.

Lynata wrote:

Harriticus wrote:Really I consider the DKoK to be an "elite" Guard regiment, not Stormtrooper level but up there with the Cadians and Catachans. They're certainly one of the most highly decorated Regiments. Where they stand out has more to do with their tenacity/refusal to retreat in both attack and defense and skill at siege/trench warfare than simply having company's of well-rounded infantry.

Hmmh, I suppose it hinges on what constitutes "elite". Without doubt the Death Korps are one of the most stubborn regiments out there, right up with the Mordians, but the idea of trench warfare in itself just conjures images of thousands of men charging into waiting guns, then rinse and repeat until one side runs dry of ammunition or reinforcements, and that didn't really seem "elite" to me. Might be just my perception of it, tho. I am fairly reluctant to attribute the "elite" tag to any IG force other than the Storm Troopers. It depends on what one is comparing them to, however ... other troops in the galaxy? Other Imperial forces? Or just other Guard regiments? If the latter, then yeah, I guess you could call them somewhat elite, but I don't think this was what Twiqbal was getting at, considering he switched to Marines soon after.

I wouldn't call the DKoK "elite" (although their engineers or grenadiers could certainly be called such), their real usefulness is their willingness to die. Korpsmen rarely think anything of throwing away their lives to the Imperium to the point where the DKoK army list doesn't even have a refractor field for their commanders.

Personally I picture the DKoK as willing to die, but not willing to waste their life.

If there's a position that can be taken, but needs a squad or two to play the living targets, the DKoK guardsmen will volunteer without hesitation or question, however its not the whole platoon that will charge to their death.

Basically, they use tactics, but if a situation requires the sacrifice of some troops, well its just another to serve the Imperium.

I consider DKOK a high-tier Regiment, "elite" in the Imperial Guard setting (though not really so if you include other non-Guard forces in the Imperium). A DKOK Regiment will do better in most situations, by and large, then your run-of-the-mill Regiments. This is true for all the famed units, Cadian, Catachan, Vostroyans, and so on.

The Munitorium considers the Death Korps second only to the Adeptus Astartes in combat effectiveness and their ability to breach "inpregnable" defensive positions.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The Munitorium considers the Death Korps second only to the Adeptus Astartes in combat effectiveness and their ability to breach "inpregnable" defensive positions.

Next to Titan-Legions, drop-podding SoB and the Munitorum's own specialized Sapper Regiment, I find that somewhat hard to believe.
Is this a statement out of some Forgeworld book?

I do believe they are the best Guard regiment for siege warfare, however. At least I'm not aware of any of the other famous ones having a claim of this sort. They all seem to specialize on different aspects.
And for a true war of attrition, they might even be the best Imperial force overall - and yes, that includes being even better than the Space Marines at this task.

Lynata wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The Munitorium considers the Death Korps second only to the Adeptus Astartes in combat effectiveness and their ability to breach "inpregnable" defensive positions.

Next to Titan-Legions, drop-podding SoB and the Munitorum's own specialized Sapper Regiment, I find that somewhat hard to believe.
Is this a statement out of some Forgeworld book?

Yes, the Seige of Vraks. And yes, they are all much more effective than all of those things.

Harriticus wrote:
Meanwhile, BL fiction (particularly the Cain series) and by and large much of the fanbase portrays the Guard as an elite, professional, and highly competent force....Guardsmen are highly motivated, intelligent, and many dismiss the fanatical instructions and dogma of their commanders. Operations are conducted by caring and sympathetic commanders in a highly professional and efficient combined-arms fashion. The enemy is well known, quite defeatable, and respected.

To be fair, the Valhallan 597th was made up of Guardsmen that survived a Tyranid Invasion, kinda weeds out the weak and leaves only the strong. As for caring officers, both the Colonel and Major were the few surviving officers, both company commanders, so they may have a closer connection to the troops then normal.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:I do believe GW makes guard seem to be a bunch of cowardly die in mass idiots because they need to write stories about how their space knights get to be the best-est winners ever. So they have to make the IG lose.

This in particular bothers me because if they made the Guard out to look like a competent military force it would be a lot more impressive when they're in trouble and the super space knights come along and save them. By making the Guard seem actually competent it shows how ridiculously deadly and horrifying the galaxy is, if Guardsmen (in general, local variances notwithstanding) are the equals or betters of current Western troops then that makes things like the Eldar or Marines or whatever flavour seem downright terrifying because they're so much more skilled than the best that humanity can produce.

Well, how would "current Western troops" fare against an enemy like Orks or Eldar?

And I think y'all need to read the Codex Planetstrike and its "Glorious Assaults" and "Infamous Invasions" sections to have yer faith in the Guard restored...
Stop staring at the books intended to hype the Marines!

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Yes, the Seige of Vraks. And yes, they are all much more effective than all of those things.

Ahh ... I think I will treat that bit like the other oursourced material, then, as far as my own assessment of the various sources is concerned. But thanks for the confirmation.

In Dan Abnetts Gaunts Ghosts series, most specially The Armour of Contempt, Dalin Criid encounters a bloodthirster. Not only him but several other companies of gaurdsmen. The IG took Gereon and as far as i now none were killed for seeing daemons and most got shipped out to Jago. Gaunt and his stealth team that went to Gereon previously also encountered daemons but the Inquisition killed none of them for seeing this.

Yes and in the books leading up to that they inquisition more or less wrote the whole bunch of them off as taint proof. And yes you may be right and it for sure isn't an every time thing. But if the Grey knights show up everyone is likely to die. The GK codex has every world they touch being purged and every marine chapter they work with being mind wiped.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Harriticus wrote:I consider DKOK a high-tier Regiment, "elite" in the Imperial Guard setting (though not really so if you include other non-Guard forces in the Imperium). A DKOK Regiment will do better in most situations, by and large, then your run-of-the-mill Regiments. This is true for all the famed units, Cadian, Catachan, Vostroyans, and so on.

This is only true when you have them fighting at what they are good at. They would likely be killed to a man without doing anything if you had them up against a highly mobile enemy. If you need a fortress taken out call the DKOK. If you need to fight a highly mobile gorilla war call the Tallarn. They are all good at what they are trained and raised to do. Im sure even the gangers from a hive are some of the best urban warfare fighters the imperium has because they have been doing it for years before they become part of the guard.

Lynata wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:The Munitorium considers the Death Korps second only to the Adeptus Astartes in combat effectiveness and their ability to breach "inpregnable" defensive positions.

Next to Titan-Legions, drop-podding SoB and the Munitorum's own specialized Sapper Regiment, I find that somewhat hard to believe.
Is this a statement out of some Forgeworld book?

I do believe they are the best Guard regiment for siege warfare, however. At least I'm not aware of any of the other famous ones having a claim of this sort. They all seem to specialize on different aspects.
And for a true war of attrition, they might even be the best Imperial force overall - and yes, that includes being even better than the Space Marines at this task.

It takes a lot of effort to move a titan legion and then they need to have the resources to keep it running. I bet the DKOK is more cost effective to send off at the enemy then a titan legion even with the crazy high fatality rates.

White Ninja wrote:It takes a lot of effort to move a titan legion and then they need to have the resources to keep it running. I bet the DKOK is more cost effective to send off at the enemy then a titan legion even with the crazy high fatality rates.

Well, it takes a 2km starship to move Titans, and it takes a 2km starship to move a Guard regiment... I don't think that the difference in deployment is actually that big. Fatality rates likely mean that you need to plan even more trips to support the troops with supplies and reinforcements.

Of course Death Korps regiments are way easier to replace than Titans, so I suppose this may influence the decision of what's regarded as more efficient.

Of course you can have multiple regiments on that 2km long starship. The Admech doesn't really share space with their Titans.

And there are only so many titans and ships that can actually carry them. You can cram guardsman onto any old ship you want.

Lynata wrote:Well, how would "current Western troops" fare against an enemy like Orks or Eldar?

Eldar could be problematic. Orks would get annihilated.

Any army that's combat doctrine is basically "mass waves of infantry and armor" would get rolled. Modern military strategy doesn't screw around with things like epic fireifights and duels, heroics etc. A fight of an Ork Waaagh versus modern day United States would look something like:

CNN: And now we take you to President Obama's live speech.

OBAMA: My fellow Americans. At approximately 3:27pm Wednesday evening, a massive Ork warband touched down in France. Before surrendering, and subsequently being killed to a man, the French military managed to identify the leader of this warband, a Warboss named BigThraka. Yesterday evening, my military staff informed me that one of our Predator drones had acquired a positive ID on the location of Warboss BigThraka. At approximately 4:30pm I authorized the use of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. At 4:40pm, one such missile was launched from a silo in North Dakota, where it then traveled across the country, over the Atlantic ocean and detonated directly above BigThraka's base camp. We have visual confirmation that BigThraka, all of his lieutenants, and a sizable portion of the warband within that vicinity have been incinerated, and that without those leaders, the Ork chain of command has collapsed, and the various warbands making up the Waagh have resorted to mass in-fighting. Over the next week, US and NATO forces will perform systematic air strikes to mop up the survivors, while Haliburton corp. seeks to rebuild France."

That would be the end of the Waagh, and Obama would win re-election.

That's basically how fights with Orks would go. Of course in reality, any WH40K faction woul just use their Navy to kill us all. But planetside our superior tactics would win the day.

It's kind of funny in a way. For the sake of being entertaining, WH40K warfare is basically done in a a WW2 format. "Learn how to win the last war just in time to lose the next one" and all that...

There's a case to be made for the Titan Legions being as effective as Death Korps at cracking a fortified position however Titan's tend to obliterate their target rather than breech it. Quite frankly, if you're going that route you might as well nuke it. If they do breech it then you still have to send in infantry anyway and guess who's the best ones to send in.

Grey Templar wrote:Of course you can have multiple regiments on that 2km long starship.

Depending on which source you go by, and the size of the regiment.

Though even if that were possible, there's that small inconvenience that these multiple regiments would have to be picked up from multiple places, which would greatly increase deployment time and resources spent on transportation (fuel, food, etc).

It's not like you go to Krieg and order 5 regiments at the fly-thru. By default, 1 tithe means 1 regiment. If you want more, you gotta pick up those that have been raised in the past. Of course the Munitorum has the authority to demand more than one regiment in times of crisis, but that would obviously strain the planet's resources in a way that it likely wouldn't be able to meet the next tithe, which is precisely why it's not done unless there is a pressing need.

Lynata wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Of course you can have multiple regiments on that 2km long starship.

Depending on which source you go by, and the size of the regiment.

Though even if that were possible, there's that small inconvenience that these multiple regiments would have to be picked up from multiple places, which would greatly increase deployment time and resources spent on transportation (fuel, food, etc).

It's not like you go to Krieg and order 5 regiments at the fly-thru. By default, 1 tithe means 1 regiment. If you want more, you gotta pick up those that have been raised in the past. Of course the Munitorum has the authority to demand more than one regiment in times of crisis, but that would obviously strain the planet's resources in a way that it likely wouldn't be able to meet the next tithe, which is precisely why it's not done unless there is a pressing need.

Where are you getting this 1 tithe equals 1 regiment? It's definately not that way on Krieg or Catachan. Even Tanith was tithed 3 regiments at once. Each tithe is customized to each planet.

The tith is calculated based on the planets population growth rates. and therefor is different for every world.

The size of the regiments raised would likely also play a factor in how many regiments are raised at once.

You're right, this was changed in-between editions.

Old Codex: All troops recruited from a planet at one time form a single regiment. Back then, this was taken as an explanation on why regiments vary in size.
New Codex: Depending on the world's tithe grade, more than one regiment may be recruited. The new explanation for varying regimental sizes is their effective combat power, so that a regiment of Cadian Shock Troops has the same strategic value as a regiment of Randomworld Farmer Conscripts - the latter will just have lots more men to make up for lack in training and equipment.

My bad!

Still, I'm a bit miffed at someone at Forgeworld discarding the CJ army list and Andy Hoare's drop-podding Sisters.
That, and I think the Munitorum's own Sapper Regiment should hold the IG trophy of breaching fortifications in the most efficient way.